


Cryptic Messages

by larryologymajor



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: Airplanes, F/M, Fluff, Secret Messages
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-17
Updated: 2019-01-17
Packaged: 2019-10-11 11:38:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17446244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/larryologymajor/pseuds/larryologymajor
Summary: A 5SOS oneshot...Charlie’s flying home for a last minute trip but she’s completely sleep deprived. To keep her self awake until boarding, she spends a few hours in the airport totally jamming to an album her best friend made her download at the last minute, 5SOSMeet You There Tour Live. She’s not super familiar with the band and wouldn’t recognize any of the guys if she was seated next to them. But wait, that’s what happens. Enjoy Charlie’s flight, Michael’s spy-antics, and a dash of Luke.





	Cryptic Messages

**Cryptic Message**

Charlie swung her backpack over her shoulder and stepped forward to scan her mobile boarding pass. As she waited, she hopped her head and swiveled her hips to the beat of the music in her wireless earbuds. She smiled at the gate attendant, said thank you, then danced her way into the jet bridge. She rearranged her chestnut and caramel topknot and pushed a strand of hair behind her ear.

She was listening to a 5 Seconds of Summer album that her friend Bianca made her download while she was packing last night. Bianca said that she got access to an advanced copy of their new live album, recorded in London on their Meet You There Tour that just wrapped up. Bianca guaranteed Charlie would LOVE the band and the album. While the band had been around for a while and Charlie enjoyed the few singles she’d heard on the radio, she didn’t consider herself anything more than a casual fan and she’d never gone out of her way to look them up or check out their videos.

Charlie was dead tired on her feet. She’d been a walking zombie since her second double shift of the week three days ago. After work she rushed home to pack for a last minute trip back home to Chicago to visit her family. With a 3am wake up call, Charlie didn’t even bother going to bed the night before. She didn’t trust herself to wake up on time, so she stayed up all night packing and cleaning her apartment. She was mega grateful for Bianca making her download the album. The album was upbeat, face-paced, enough pop and rock, and the band members’ comedic antics on stage kept her awake and happy.

As she continued to groove her way down the jetbridge corridor, she peeked at the seat number on her screen before she slid her phone into her pocket. 27 Charlie. 27 Charlie. Charlie repeated the number in her head to the rhythm in her ears. That should be easy, she thought. Her birthday was on the 27th and Charlie has been a family nickname forever, short for Charlotte.

The line moved forward and a flight attended greeted Charlie as she stepped from the jet bridge into the plane. She walked down the narrow corridor and carefully tracked the rows, noting the main cabin was essentially packed and her randomly assigned seat was an aisle seat like she preferred. The aisle, she thought, allowed her greater freedom to get up and stretch or use the bathroom during the flight, which she would undoubtedly do at least once.

Still grooving and bopping to the music, she noticed an attractive guy a half dozen rows away from her, he too was seated in a aisle seat. He was eyeing her. Charlie caught him looking at her and made eye contact with him but continued to dance anyway. He smirked then quickly looked away.

Seconds before she reached her row, she reached around her bag to snag the rest of her her in-flight essentials from the front pocket and transferred them to her purse. Kindle: check. Phone charging cable: check. Backup phone battery: check.

She approached her row and frowned. _Someone_ was in her seat. Not just someone but the cute guy who watched her dancing was in her seat.

While Charlotte tossed her backpack in the overhead bin she made brief eye contact with the guy sitting in her seat. For half a second too long she gazed into his green eyes before busting out her sassy attitude. “Excuse me, I believe you’re sitting in my seat. I should be 27C.”  
  
She watched the guy pull a crinkled up boarding pass from the seat pocket and study it. “Oops, I’m 27B.” He pushed his beanie back from his eyes.  
  
Charlotte rolled her eyes and watched the  guy scoot into the seat to his left. She wanted a peaceful, non-hostile flight so she smiled at him, studying his face.  “Thanks, 27B.” She lowered herself into the aisle seat.  
  
He chuckled and smiled. “I’m Michael.”  
  
Charlie nodded and returned the introduction. “Charlie. Nice to meet you.” She smiled again. As she carefully slid her kindle, phone battery, and USB cable in the seat back pocket, Michael engaged in conversation with a guy across the aisle from Charlie. She assumed they knew each other and thought that she should have taken the middle seat and let Michael take her aisle seat. Charlie didn’t have any clue that she was sitting next to the guitarist from the band she’d spent all morning listening to while dancing her way through the airport.  
  
She popped her earbuds out from her ears and wrapped them around the back of her neck and looped the ear pieces together in the front to form a necklace until she was ready to use them after takeoff.  
  
During the safety briefing video, Charlie listened to the boys on both sides of her chat back and forth about a tour and recording. She was so tired that she barely paid attention and didn’t really dwell on what they were saying or who they are.  
  
A short while later the plane was in the air making headway at cruising altitude. Michael tried to make small talk with her but Charlotte was tired. She opted for music and a nap instead of reading. She slipped on her earbuds and resumed Meet You There Tour Live. She was easily on her third or fourth iteration through the album today so she was starting to learn the melodies of each song. Charlie didn’t notice herself softly humming the chorus to _Why Won’t You Love Me_ in her trance-like state of sleep.  
  
She felt the guy next to her shift but she didn’t hear him quietly call out to his friend across the aisle. She was mostly asleep and completely relaxed so she let the music drown out their chatter.  
  
“Luke! LUKE!” Michael whisper yelled across the aisle to his friend and bandmate.  
  
“What?!” Luke hissed.  
  
“Dude. I think she’s listening to us.”  
  
Luke raised an eyebrow.  
  
Michael continued, “I swear she’s humming Why Don’t You Love Me. Seriously. What if she‘s listening to Meet You There Tour Live? Ash said the label ‘leaked’ the tracks to an exclusive group on Tumblr.”  
  
“I highly doubt it,” said Luke shaking his head. “Although that would be dope.”  
  
Michael was hopeful. “My vote is yes. I saw her earlier when we were going through security. She was totally jamming to whatever she had playing in her earbuds.”  
  
Near the end of the flight, Charlie was still asleep when her phone slipped from her hand and clattered to the floor after bouncing off Michael’s foot. He glanced at her to ensure she was still asleep then grabbed her iPhone off the floor. As he picked it up, he couldn’t help but glance at her screen. The phone’s display lit up, recognizing that it had been moved  
  
He held it up towards Luke, grinning, and called out, “Luke! Look!”  
  
Luke glanced up and his smile grew wide. Michael was right after all. She was DEFINITELY jamming to MYT Tour Live.  
  
Michael was feeling mischievous. He held his pointer finger to lips, shushed Luke, and made a picture taking motion. Luke suppresses a laugh but grinned widely as Michael slid the lock screen over to the camera and flipped to the front facing camera. He carefully framed a selfie of him, Luke, and sleeping Charlie and snapped a picture for her to discover later.  
  
He then snapped the same picture with his phone. He also opened up the Notes app and quickly tapped out:  
  
Charlie, thanks for being a fan! We hope you enjoy the live album! Xx Michael & Luke 5SOS  
  
Then for good measure, he used the feature to insert a drawing and attempted to draw his signature.  
  
He used Charlie’s phone to snap a photo of his screen, then locked both phones. He shoved his into his backpack and wedged hers into the seat pocket in front of her.  
  
Michael gently nudged Charlie’s knee with his own. When she didn’t stir, he bumped her shoulder and she responded sleepily with a “Hmmmm” sound.  
  
“Sorry to wake you,” Michael started. “We’re starting the final descent soon. You dropped your phone so I picked it up for you. I couldn’t help notice you’re listening to 5 Seconds of Summer. I met them once, they’re so nice!”  
  
Charlie was half asleep still. “I don’t know anything about them, really. My best friend makes me download random music all the time. Sometimes I wonder why she likes half the stuff she recommends. However, I actually kinda like 5SOS.”  
  
Michael started to mess with her. “I heard their guitarist is super cute, dyes his hair all the time, and loves pranking people.”  
  
Charlie looked baffled and shrugged. “I have no idea. Never really seen them before.”  
  
The conversation lulled and Charlie enjoyed the quiet for several long minutes, the only sound in her world was coming through her ear buds. She closed her eyes and appreciated the lead singers smooth voice, the power behind each drum beat, the rhythmic way the bass thumped, and the fluid strokes over each guitar string.

The plane continued its descent and safely landed at Chicago O’Hare. Charlie was quiet as the plane taxied to the jetbridge. When the doors open and passengers started to deplane, Charlie gathered up her stuff, wished Michael a safe trip since he had a connecting flight, and shuffled towards baggage claim.

Standing in baggage claim, Charlie texted her best friend, Bianca.

 

> Made it safely to Chicago!  Got seated next to this cute guy but passed out and didn’t really talk to him.

Bianca fired back an immediate reply:

 

> Glad you made it, but boo. Should have talked to him and gotten his number.

Charlie agreed.

 

> Ikr. He wanted to chat but I was seriously so tired. After takeoff I passed out. Only woke up when Michael (cute seat neighbor) woke me up. He picked up my phone after I dropped it in my sleep.

Charlie opened her camera app then snapped a quick selfie of herself waiting in baggage claim to send to Bianca. In one swift motion she double tapped her iPhone home button to swipe the camera closed and switch back over to her text messages. Locating Bianca’s message, she clicked the add photo button to insert her selfie and squinted at the thumbnail previews of her recent picture. There were two new photos in her camera roll that she didn’t recognize.

Feeling confused, she sent her selfie to Bianca then launched the Photos app and swiped to the first unrecognizable photo.

The conveyor belt in baggage claim started to move and slowly spewed our luggage. Charlie didn’t notice. She was staring at a picture of herself sleeping, sandwiched between Michael and his friend who was squatted next to her in the aisle. Charlie’s fave furrowed in anger and the invasion of privacy. How dare a stranger use her phone to take her sleeping photo.

Charlie swiped to the next screen and looked at the message Michael left her. She gasped and her fingers instinctively dialed Bianca to FaceTime.

She picked up on the second ring and her face appeared on the screen. “Bee, I think I sat by 5SOS on the plane. And I think one of them used my phone to take a picture of me, well us. While I was sleeping!”

“What? How? No way!” Bianca sputtered.

“Seriously! What does Michael look like?” questioned Charlie.

“Let me check Instagram for the latest. Standby.” Bianca froze on the screen while she minimized FaceTime to check Michael’s social media.  “At the moment, he’s wearing his fluffy hair blonde.” Her face unfroze on Charlie’s screen. “He’s usually not clean shaven. His eyes are super green and really pretty. His smile is wide. Usually he has a baseball hat on. And a black hoodie. Oh and his accent is lovely, quite posh sounding. I love it to be honest. Could listen to him talk for hours.

Charlie interrupted her, “How about Luke? Is there a Luke?”

Bianca laughed. “Of course there’s a Luke. He and Michael are the founding members of 5SOS although he’s the youngest of the band. He’s super tall, legs for days, like a baby giraffe. But he denies that he’s tall. He wears skinny jeans, pretty tops, leather jackets and heeled leather boots. I bet his boot collection would rival your Pikolinos collection. Gah, but his face. I love his face,” Bianca gushed. “He’s gorgeous. He has super bright blue eyes. And his dimples will swallow you whole. His dark blonde hair is chin length with unruly curls.”

Now Charlie laughed. “Hold on, Bee. I’m texting you something.” She sent the two photos but continued to talk. “Ummm yeah, your descriptions fit the boys perfectly.”

Bianca’s face froze again on Charlie’s screen as she opened her text. “Oh my God, Char. You totally met Michael and Luke! I am so envious! Although if I were you I probably would have fangirled and then drooled on Michael in my sleep!!”

“Hahaha!! I’m sure you would’ve been fine Bee! 100% put together!” Charlie winked at her best friend.

“Charlie! You need to insta this ASAP and tag Michael!”

Bianca gasped. She didn’t notice that her suitcase was the last one and it was going in circles on the baggage claim conveyor belt. “Bee! But what would I even say in the caption???”

“Well, Michael’s always changing his twitter handle and last week he posted a spy meme so how about something spy or detective related?” Bianca questioned.

“Hmmm,” Charlie was thinking. “What’s his insta handle?”

“It’s @michaelclifford.” Bianca knew it off the top of her head.

“How about ‘Thanks for the super stealth nap time reconnaissance spy photos @michaelclifford! It was a really nice meeting you! (even though I didn’t know who you are lol) I really love the new live album!’?” Charlie asked Bianca.

“Do it! I love it!” Bianca encouraged her.

Charlie paused FaceTime again while she posted the picture.

“I promise I’ll text you if my post goes viral,” she laughed. Charlie grabbed her suitcase and the girls said their goodbyes.

Charlie ordered an Uber and got in, heading to her parents house.

Her phone singer indicating a comment on her Instagram post. It was Michael Clifford. Her heart beat quicker for a minute, but her brow furrowed in confusion. He left a cryptic message that Charlie didn’t understand.

 

> pa dhz tf wslhzbyl! p svclk dhajopun fvb qht av tlla fvb aolyl avby spcl ;) kt tl pm fvb lcly dhua hu hbavnyhwolk jvwf vy apjrlaz av zll bz spcl. ee  
>  -Caesar

It took Charlie a few days to decipher Michael’s message, but she finally figured out that it was a Caesar Cipher. _Thanks for the clue, dude,_ she thought. 

Michael’s message translated to:

 

> It was my pleasure! I loved watching you jam to Meet You There Tour Live ;) DM me if you ever want an autographed copy or tickets to see us live. Xx  
>  -Caesar

And with that, Charlie smiled. She knew this was a story she would be repeating for years.

**Author's Note:**

> ***  
> Thanks for reading! <3 Was there something in here that made you laugh or smile? I’d like to know - a comment would really make my day!
> 
> Come say hi on [Tumblr](https://thestudyof5sos.tumblr.com).


End file.
